Alexander Hamilton

Context

Important Terms, People, and Events

Alexander Hamilton was most likely born on January 11,
1757, although the exact year of his birth is unknown. Hamilton
was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis or St. Kitts to Rachel
Fawcett and James Hamilton, but he spent the majority of his youth
on the island of St. Croix. His formal education as a child was
minimal. When his mother died in 1768, Hamilton took his first job
as a clerk in the offices of merchant Nicholas Cruger, keeping
Cruger's business records, and coordinating business efforts between
the merchant ship captains, government officials, and planters.
Cruger and a local Presbyterian minister, Reverend Hugh Knox, recognized Hamilton's
genius and persuaded him to leave St. Croix for New York City.
Alexander left the island in 1772, never to return again.

In New York, Hamilton attended several preparatory academies and
schools to prepare himself for college. He interviewed with John
Witherspoon of the College of New Jersey, which is now known as
Princeton, but eventually enrolled in King's College, which is
now known as Columbia. In 1776, Hamilton withdrew from King's College
and joined a local New York militia to fight in the American
Revolution against the British. During his first year
of service, Hamilton served as an artillery captain, but quickly
moved up in the ranks and eventually became one of General George Washington's
military aides. Hamilton spent four years as Washington's attaché
and participated in several battles, including the Battle of Yorktown
and the Battle of Monmouth.

Hamilton left the military in 1781. He had recently married
Betsey Schuyler, and worked diligently for several months to pass
the New York bar exam. Hamilton served as one of New York's most prominent
lawyers in the early 1780s, and also began his political career,
serving first as a national tax agent, and then as one of New York's
representatives at the national Congress in Philadelphia. In 1786,
Hamilton was chosen to represent New York state at a national convention
held in Annapolis, Maryland, to amend the Articles of Confederation.
When only a few of the delegates from the other states bothered
to attend, Hamilton called for a second convention to be held in
Philadelphia in 1787. This time, the delegates took the invitation
more seriously, and created the outline for a new government by
drafting the Constitution.

Although Hamilton attended most of the proceedings at
the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, he did not actually participate much
in the drafting of the new document. Hamilton argued that a new
and stronger central government was needed to correct the mistakes
made in the government outlined in the Articles of Confederation,
but many of the other delegates felt his ideas were too radical
and labeled Hamilton an extremist.

Nevertheless, when the new Constitution was presented
to the delegates at the convention, Hamilton signed the document.
He believed the Constitution was a step in the right direction,
and also believed that if it was not approved, the entire union
could collapse. With this in mind, Hamilton returned to New York,
where he published a series of essays to encourage the people of
New York to ratify the Constitution. Hamilton co-authored the essays
with John Jay and James Madison under the pseudonym "Publius,"
and the collection came to be known as the Federalist Papers. The
essays succeeded in convincing Americans to ratify the Constitution.

When George Washington became the first President of the United
States in 1790, he selected Alexander Hamilton to be his first Secretary
of the Treasury. Although Hamilton served in Washington's cabinet
for only five years, many historians regard him as the greatest
and most influential Secretary of the Treasury in U.S. history.
As Secretary, Hamilton wrote five key reports that established American
economic policy. The first and last of these reports were his Reports
on the Public Credit in which Hamilton argued that the United States
government should assume the debts of all the state governments.
Hamilton also encouraged Congress to pay the interest on the debts
the country owed, not just the principle. He believed that these
measures would give credibility and stability to the American economic
system. Hamilton also wrote a report to convince Congress to establish
a national bank to control the country's finances, and followed
this up with a report encouraging Congress to draft a Mint Act
to create a national mint and stable national currency.

Hamilton also wrote the prophetic On the Subject of Manufactures,
which argued that the United States should shift the bulk of its
economy from agriculture to industry. Hamilton believed that manufacturing
would bring more money into the country, but Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson disagreed with this argument, and believed that
a nation based on business would jeopardize the republican ideals
the nation was founded upon. Hamilton and Jefferson differed on
other issues, most notably in their interpretations of the Constitution.
Hamilton followed a loose interpretation of the Constitution, which
he believed permitted everything that it did not expressly forbid.
Jefferson, on the other hand, was a strict constructionist who
believed that the Constitution forbade everything it did not expressly
permit. Jefferson and Hamilton's battles spread throughout the
nation and laid the foundations for the first political parties.

As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton also became involved
in foreign policy. He encouraged President Washington to send John Jay
to England in 1794 to negotiate a settlement to end a dispute between
the two countries. In 1797, Hamilton also asked President John
Adams to send Jay to Paris for the same reason. Hamilton resigned
from his position in Washington's cabinet in 1795 and returned
to his law practice. Hamilton did not remain entirely out of the
political world after his resignation, but his involvement in politics
after the late 1790s did his cause more harm than good. In the election
of 1800, for example, Hamilton inadvertently split the Federalist
Party to allow his rival, Thomas Jefferson, to become President
of the United States.

In 1804, Hamilton wrote a series of essays against another
rival, Aaron Burr that was partly responsible for Burr's loss in
that year's New York gubernatorial race. Burr blamed Hamilton for
his loss and challenged Hamilton to a duel in which he shot Hamilton. Hamilton
died the next day on July 11, 1804, at the age of forty-seven.